This a a video of Storyville under full sail in the Bahamas.  It's a little blurry, but I still love seeing her sail in blue water.  The video was taken over a year ago and we've put many miles under the keel since then.   Enjoy!

To reach a port we must sail - sail, not lie at anchor - sail,  not drift. ~Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Up anchor! Up anchor!

Set sail and away!

The ventures of dreamland

Are thine for a day.

~Silas Weir Mitchell

Another Favorite from the BVIs - Diamond Cay

One challenge of cruising in the British Virgin Islands is that most anchorages are filled with mooring balls that cost between $25.00 and $30.00 per night.  That might not be a bad thing if you are on a charter and plan on returning to work within the next few weeks, but for us, we would go broke pretty quick if we had to spend that kind of money every day just to "park" our boat somewhere.

We loved to find anchorages where you really could anchor, because, as of now, that is still free!  So that's just one of the many things that we loved about Diamond Cay.  There is good snorkeling there, we saw sea turtles, rays, fish and coral, all just a short swim from Storyville. And you are just minutes away from two of the most beautiful beaches in the BVI, Sandy Spit and Sandy Cay.  There is an awesome bubbly pool that is an easy hike away. There is a wonderful restaurant there, Foxy's Taboo.  I was fortunate enough to celebrate my birthday there this year.  In fact, as we sailed around the islands, we found ourselves returning to Diamond Cay several times.  Click the link above and get some information about Diamond Cay.  Check out the photos and videos below.

Storyville, Pipe Muh Bligh and unknown catamaran anchored at Diamond Cay

Wonderful birthday dinner at Foxy's Taboo (My birthday and Rene's)

View from the top of the Bubbly Pool

Twin boats Libery and Storyville (both Morgan OI)

Poison Trees!  Thanks for the warning about the Manchineel  Tree

Water.  We all agree that it's important to drink enough water every day so that our bodies can stay healthy. I'm sure that must be doubly true here in the tropics where there is a lot of, shall we say, perspiration going on (because it sounds better than saying we're sweating like pigs). One of our favorite things that we discovered here in the Dominican Republic is bags of water (funda de aqua).  

We love them for many reasons.  Obviously the world would benefit from just a little less plastic.  Compared to a plastic bottle of water, this must leave a much smaller carbon footprint. When you're on the go you can put the empty bag in your pocket and toss it when you find a trash can.  Plus, they are portable and as an added benefit, you can freeze them and use them in your cooler.  As ice and then later, drinking water.  I like to take a frozen one along on a hot day and drink it as the ice melts.  

We are surprised that we've only seen them here in the DR.  I hope that we find more as we sail Storyville down through the Caribbean Islands.  Just in case, I think we will stock up while we can.

I believe that water is the only drink for a wise man.  ~Henry David Thoreau

     ~~~~~~~~~Thank goodness we never claimed to be all that wise~~~~~~~

Pure water is the world's first and foremost medicine.  ~Slovakian Proverb

Pro Charger

Deana:  One thing I can tell you about cruising guys, or even boating guys in general, is that they really love to talk about batteries, engines, anchors, etc., etc, etc.  I admit that sometimes when a group of guys get together and start going on about their battery bank, I just kind of tune out.  But I do start to pay attention when I am directly affected by said battery bank.  We have recently stopped using our refrigerator because of the draw on our batteries.  Now, you've got my attention.  I really like refrigeration!  Luckily we can still use our Engel freezer/refrigerator, but it's a challenge, if I keep it cold enough to keep the meat frozen, well, you can guess what that might do to, say, lettuce.   

Fortunately for Storyville and myself, we have Troy.  He got busy figuring out what we need to do to correct our battery situation.  I will let him tell you in his own words (yes, I convinced Troy to write a blog post).    He did say that it was easier to write about it than to do it! So, maybe you will be like me and just tune out, but I bet there are some guys out there who will really enjoy this post:

Troy:  One of the challenges of living on a boat and “off the grid” is keeping your batteries charged and happy. We have one solar panel, an Air Breeze wind generator, and a 5kw Nor Pro diesel generator to keep the batteries charged up, our fridge box is cooled by an old style adler barber type that just draws too many amps to be useful, it just kills the batteries if the wind dies down or the sun goes down and that happens every day.. so we turned off the fridge until we update that, in the meantime I replaced our old weak 40 amp battery charger with a new 60 amp smart charger from Stirling.

Our battery bank is 4 Trojan 6 volt deep cycle batteries putting out 12 volts, and about 470 amp hours, and a starting battery for the gen set, so my research says it needs to be putting in about 60 amps to keep them happy. The charger I had was an old style 40 amp True Charge, and it was not running at capacity at all so out it goes, in goes new wiring, new 80 amp fuses, new terminals and a new location for the actual charging unit. So far, its been just great! I can run a desulphanating cycle automatically and I believe the batteries will really respond to that! We now have a remote control, and a battery temperature sensor that lets us see just how healthy the battery bank is.

We have a few more projects to get done, I think the next will be an Engel cold plate and compressor for the fridge box, these use about 2.8 amps and we have the Engel freezer that has been a great piece of equipment to have, I really recommend the Engel products. I also think we will add more solar panels to the boat, the cost is coming down and its always sunny around here. Maybe in Puerto Rico. I would like to add a bit more amp hours to the battery bank also, I think St. Martin for that.. we'll see..

On another boat project that has worked out, the Natures Head composting toilet is working just as advertised! No fuss, no smell, no water to flush and I can be rid of 4 thru holes and all that stinky hose and bladders, once again, I recommend this piece of equipment...

Ready for installation

What a beauty!

Installed and ready to go

Just look at it work it's magic

Fuses installed

Here is the remote

Storyville's batteries are happy and we have enough bananas to last a lifetime

You've got a lot of choices.  If getting out of bed in the morning is a chore and you're not smiling on a regular basis, try another choice. ~Steven D. Woodhull (U.S. geologist, 1976- )

Sandy Cay, British Virgin Islands

Today I want to tell you about one of the most beautiful islands that we've seen. It's so beautiful there that we've used pictures taken at Sandy Cay, of both us and Storyville, on our boat cards and as profile pictures on Facebook. The picture of Storyville at the top of this blog was taken there. It's just one of those places.

It is a small island close to Jost Van Dyke and it has no protected anchorage so the moorings there are for day use only. The island is uninhabited and the beach is spectacular! We spent the better part of a day there soaking up the sunshine with Pipe Muh Bligh while they still had Geoie and Sarah aboard. In fact Sarah's Facebook profile pic was taken that day too.

Enough already – I'll just post the pictures and let them speak for themselves, aren't they worth a thousand words?

Enjoy a little day dream while you look at these!

Sandy Cay

One of my favorites

Troy's FB profile pic

The guys are having fun

Sarah's FB profile pic.

Hard to leave, but here is Pipe Muh Bligh headed to Jost Van Dyke

La Pulga

Yesterday Darnell decided that we needed a girls day out so Darnell, myself and Jackie from s/v Blackthorn Lady decided to take a trip to the nearby town of Imbert to visit the Haitian Flea Market, or La Pulga. The 30 minute gua gua ride was an easy one because we paid for an extra seat so that we could have only the three of us in back seat of a compact car, instead of the usual four.  Believe me, its worth the RD$60!

The flea market takes place every Thursday.  There are Haitian markets in towns all across the Dominican Republic, with some really big ones along the border of Haiti and in some of the larger towns.  Imbert is not a large town, so the flea market is probably small compared to some of the other ones.  The Haitians are selling items that are donated to their government as foreign aid. You can find toiletries, clothing, shoes, bags and all sorts of stuff. We saw lots of clothing from Old Navy, Gap and even Abercrombie. Some of the vendors are more organized and have nicer things, some of the clothes even have the tags still attached.  Some of them just put the clothes out in a big pile that you dig through.  For some you must ask the price and be ready to haggle, others just shout out that everything in their pile is one price (treinta, treinta, todo a treinta).  We even saw people sleeping on top of their piles.

Haiti is the poorest county in the western hemisphere.  Most of the people there make less than $2.00 US per day.  Many are illiterate and the widespread deforestation has led to soil erosion making farming impossible and leading to many many other problems.  There are some great organization out there with wonderful people helping the people of Haiti.  Oddly enough, we met one of those people at Leverick Bay in the British Virgin Islands. Michael Beans of The Legendary Micheal Beans Show raises funds for The Good Samaritan Foundation of Haiti, Inc.  Please take a minute to check out both web sites.  Michael Beans Show for fun and The Good Samaritan because you might feel the need to help them help Haiti.

Piles and piles of clothes to dig through

Darnell found something!

Too bad I didn't need any men's dress shoes

Toiletries

More vendors

Full Moon Party - Trellis Bay, BVI

Fire Sculpture by Aragorn

I really hope that our readers won't mind if I skip around a bit on the blog. I feel like we skipped over blogging about so much of our Virgin Islands experiences for various reasons (lack of a computer, lack of Internet, temporary lack of interest in blogging, etc.). I was looking back through some pictures and decided that I should blog about some of our wonderful adventures and experiences while we were sailing this spring. So I will be posting some about our Virgin Islands adventures and some about our current Luperon adventures as well as keeping up to date on our preparations to sail south once again. Check in often and try to keep up!

In March we spent a fun night at Trellis Bay on Beef Island in the British Virgin Islands. Lucky for us, there is an airport within walking distance and our friends Geoie and Sarah were due to fly in just in time to meet up with us in Trellis Bay. They would spend a week cruising the BVIs with us and staying on Pipe Muh Bligh with Stacy and Rene. The three boats (Storyville, Island Dream and Pipe Muh Bligh) had a great time showing Geoie and Sarah around the BVIs and making sure that we hit all the fun places, all in one weeks time.

It is almost impossible to anchor there as Trellis bay has one of the most dense mooring fields that we have seen so far. Picking up a mooring on a windy day can be a little tricky as the other boats are so closely packed together. Somehow Island Dream managed to anchor, but then Pat is braver than we are. LOL

ROTI = yummy

Locally born artist, Aragorn has a studio there. He has some beautiful pottery and other things, but he is mostly known for his fire sculptures. Every month on the full moon there is a Full Moon Party. Trellis Bay is a very cool place to visit, even if you are not lucky enough to be there for a Full Moon Party, there is a pretty beach with plenty of little shops, restaurants and bars.  Our favorite bar was Da Loose Mongoose and I don't remember the name of the little restaurant, but we had one of the best Rotis ever there. On the night of the full moon, everyone comes out to play. There is local music and crafts, mocko jumbie dancers (local dancers on stilts), fire dancers, a barbecue buffet and some awesome fire sculptures by Aragorn. Some of the fire sculptures are set out over the water. What a fun filled night. It really is a great party and a sight to behold. We are looking forward to another full moon party. I'm thinking January.

More Fire Sculptures

Gonna set it on fire!

Burning Man!

Pat and Darnell of Island Dream (Photobomb courtesy of Troy)

Rene and Stacy of Pipe Muh Bligh

Sarah and Geoie - future cruisers

Twirling

and Fire Dancing 

Mocko Jumbies

Pat

Troy and Rene - not sure why but I find this pic to be hilarious

It really was a full moon

Rasta Man

The most tangible of all visible mysteries - fire.  ~Leigh Hunt